


This Time I Might Just Dis(appear)

by mitochondrials



Series: Tony Stark Bingo 2018 [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Mentioned Peter Parker, Mentioned Stephen Strange - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 19:21:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14837663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mitochondrials/pseuds/mitochondrials
Summary: It's 4:30 am and Tony is eating pancakes while talking to a Ouija board.Sounds about right.





	This Time I Might Just Dis(appear)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the bingo square T-4: Ghosts.
> 
> This was beta'd by Politzania, who I thank very much. The title is taken from the song _Ghost_ by Mystery Skulls. 
> 
> So, the timeline here is a kinda an ambiguous MCU inspired setting where Tony knows Strange already. You could also say there's some implied IronStrange if you squint really, really hard???
> 
> But anyway, I do hope you enjoy~!

“There’s absolutely no purpose to you,” Tony said, tapping his fingers atop the kitchen table. It was 4:30 am, his coffee freshly brewed and the double chocolate-chip pancakes he’d made stacked neatly on his favourite fine china plates next to his elbow. “You’re useless. And stupid. Oh, you’re ridiculously stupid. You make no sense and I hate you.”

He was talking to the pink Ouija board he propped up on the chair across from him. He’d taken it out of its box, having grunted distastefully at the horrible black font used and set the planchette center of the table. Why? He didn’t know.

No one was home, and yes, he did actually sleep. He slept more than plenty, as a matter of fact. Pepper gave him a week off, but then he was also so frustrated with redesigning Petey’s next new suit he gave up and napped.

For a few days.  

He wasn’t really in the mood to have Friday order groceries to be delivered after finding the fridge empty, and he wasn’t gonna bother Happy about it, that’s for sure. Which, right. Happy was home. But Happy wasn’t actually around, so technically Tony felt like he was home alone. Not the point. The point was he’d gone grocery shopping, and that turned into staring at the bike rack in the back of Walmart disguised in flannel pajama pants and a Charlie the Unicorn shirt with his favourite bowler hat.

Originally he was curious if Peter would like a Stark Industries bike of his very own, limited edition. That took him wandering further through the back of the store towards the toy section. He was kinda surprised to find the Ouija boards near the bottom of the boardgames rack. He took one look at the pink board and knew he had to have it.

Has it been mentioned this took place at roughly 1 am earlier that night?

“People play with you at parties and shit,” Tony snorted, placing a pancake in his mouth. “Not me,” He pointed. “All the rumors about you make me feel like all my “friends” at the time would have summoned Cthulhu or something. Rhodey, on the other hand would have totally, honest to God, found a way to prove you work just to piss me off.” He swallowed, “He’d also try scare the shit out of me, which is worse, because he’d lord it over my head I believed in you for like, a whole five seconds after all is said and done.”

Another bite.

“I don’t. Believe in you, that is. Believe you work. Whatever.”

He proceeded to pour himself some more milk. The coffee machine buzzed, and he decided to also fetch some orange juice along with his coffee. He set the cup of orange juice next to the board and the cup of coffee by his pancakes. The milk, sitting opposite his coffee, was for pancake dipping and made with strawberries.

“It’s Strawberry milk,” Friday had insist ten minutes ago when he blitzed the strawberries in his blender, stuffing it with an unmeasured load of sugar and vanilla extract.

“It’s flavoring,” Tony argued.

“Which is Strawberry milk.” Friday argued back.

“No. See,” He raised his milk glass, demonstrating to her how very little of the blitzed strawberries he was pouring into the milk. Giving it a stir, he said, “See, it’s hardly even pink!”

Why he was dipping his pancakes into strawberry  _ flavored _ milk instead of syrup, no one’s been stupid enough to ask. And no, he was absolutely not having a mid-life crisis in the middle of the night just because no one was home.

“Yes.” Friday insisted again.“Yes, I really think you are, Boss.”

He hadn’t realized he said that out loud.

“I’m having pancakes and talking to a piece of pink cardboard. What part of that sounds like mid-life crisis? Wait, don’t answer that. If I never talked to inanimate objects you and Dum-E would have never been born.” He didn’t clarify that he mostly talked to technology, not Ouija boards. Not that any of them were only technology to him. They were - they’d always be more.

Well, Ouija boards were basically a form of technology he reckoned a moment later. People wanted to speak to the dead and they started making the tools to try. It was pretty nifty of them, actually.

“You suppose in theory it’s like talking with you, or like with - ” He stumbled over the words. “Like with Jay?” He eventually managed.

Friday chose to not respond to that.

“It’s a game, though.” He continued. “That’s the part that doesn’t make sense.” He reached for another pancake.

“Sir, I could call Rhodey. He’d currently be off-duty - ”

“Not necessary, thank you.”

“But, Boss - ”

“Mute. Pull up a browser.” He commanded, and tapped the blue hologram that appeared over his milk with a finger. He had no clue why he was even so curious, but yet he still typed Ouija boards into the search bar. It came up with stuff like Ouija Wikipedia, Amazon, Terrifying Tales, Reasons Why Ouija is fake; the list was endless.

He noticed several further down repeated that nonsense about demons and possession that you’d typically see in badly written horror movies. Going deeper, he found the witch blogs and spirit medium advertisements. “Yet I don’t see Strange,” He chuckled.

This wasn’t magic, he regretted to remind himself. Whether it was fake or not, it’d be a natural phenomena. A natural occurrence. (By that logic, magic would also be a natural occurrence, and that just gave him a headache.)

Eventually he found a site debunking all those horror movie, demon myths, including details like how spirits where always everywhere and how a couple were probably attached to you because they liked you.

“What?” He blinked.  _ That wasn’t fucking disturbing at all. _ Nope.

What he did find fascinating was the topic of the board being like dialing a pay phone and getting surprised by who answers. Apparently it wasn’t advisable to try and contact a specific spirit or person using it. According to this site, that’s what mediums were for. 

The only piece of advise that mirrored all the other nonsense was stating you shouldn’t attempt playing the board alone.

“Heh,” He hesitated to say he wasn’t alone, the words on the tip of his tongue as he looked around his very empty kitchen.

“Friday,” He closed the hologram. “Ring up Pete when he gets up later today for me, would’ya?” It was a Saturday. He could ask Peter about that bike.

“Sure thing, Boss.” She replied, sounding relieved.

He really wasn’t alone, he reaffirmed. He had Friday, and down in the shop he had Dum-E, Butterfingers, and U, like always.

“I’m gonna,” He gestured at the board. “I’ll ask Strange,” He said, resigned.

“I can ring him up later too,” Friday reminded him.

“No,” He shook his head. He’d eat his pancakes, maybe have a shower, then make some pizza first. It wasn’t like the board was going anywhere. “That’d so have to magic if it did, right? Right. I’m going with yes. I like sleeping at night.” He finished the rest of his thought aloud.

“They’d know that since you just blurted it out into the open.”

“Well, shit Fri. Thanks for that!” He grumbled, pulling his coffee close to his chest.

“You’re the one that bought it!”

“Yeah, because it’s stupid. I literally just said that a few minutes ago. I simply gotta get the gears loose for some fresh inventing later and this caught my eye. It really didn’t help that it was pink, okay?” He babbled, making quick work of his third pancake and finally taking a sip of his coffee. It was still too hot and he rejected the sudden idea of pouring some of his milk in an attempt to help.

It was Saturday morning, and he had a couple of more days off. Maybe he’d just chuck the damn thing in the trash and call it a day. Strange would pry. Because, you know, he was an asshole like that. And Tony was having a hard time even admitting to himself why he really wanted to buy the board in the first place.

“Hey, guess they’re all here anyway,” He whispered to himself.

**Author's Note:**

> This is like my third work in a row where the title has parenthesis. Clearly I have developed an aesthetic.


End file.
